Eggs and ice…

"Some people are worth melting for."
-Olaf

All our kids have been pretty good eaters, and I’ve said before that Isla has taken to food quicker than the other two.  She has until this past week happily chowed down on anything we put onto her plate.  However, we’ve discovered one food that she absolutely doesn’t like.  You’d think it would be something like squash, but she’s on good terms with squash.  It’s peas.  She does not care for peas.  Strange girl.

Isla does not hold that same dislike for her big sister.  What started as a chalk drawing activity outside turned into a living room cartwheel demonstration and Isla couldn’t get enough of it.  I’ve never seen her laugh so hard and so much as she did while watching Ashlyn tumble around in the living room.  Ashlyn enjoys making her laugh, so it was a win win for everyone involved.

There’s not much to say about this picture, other than to announce that it is officially snow cone season again.  The kids noticed the day the snow cone stand across from school opened for business.  The result is blue teeth and happy children.

No Easter would be complete without a minimum of five separate Easter egg hunts.  The first occurred with our neighborhood friends.  Eggs were hidden all around the pond and at the end of the hunt was a feast of hot dogs and other goodies.  James was only interested in the blue eggs, which Ashlyn was happy to help him find.  Isla unfortunately did not do very well in her Easter egg hunt.  She only picked up two, and one of those was handed to her.  Next year Isla.

Easter Egg hunt #2 was over at Nina and Papa’s later that afternoon.  Each kid had their own area to get eggs and then they helped the big kids search for eggs in the backyard.  They had fun hunting with their cousin Ben, but I think the highlight for Ashlyn was finding Aunt Lisa’s old dancing clothes. 

Sunday had a prize in store for the kids.  Mom had bought tickets to see Disney’s Frozen on Ice™.  Ashlyn had no idea where we were going, but we convinced her (not that it was difficult) to put her hair up in an Elsa braid.  We hid her Elsa dress in the car, and when we got there she started seeing all the other little Elsa dresses and started to get excited.  She still didn’t know what it was all about until we got in, but she had a great time and I loved seeing the smile on her face.  She sang “Let it Go” right along with the other hundreds of tiny off-key singers.  She was also willing to let Mom and Dad say “let it go” to the money in our wallets, which went to high quality Disney merchandize and completely non-inflated and incredibly reasonable cotton candy and concession stand beverages*.

After the ice show we stopped off at a local Dallas hot spot called the Truck Yard.  It’s kid friendly in the afternoon and they had a lot of fun playing around while we ate.  All in all, it was a great weekend spent with the kids and family.  Only three more Easter Egg hunts to go!

*This statement is almost completely false.  Only the part about us losing our money is true.

Green, grins, and catapults…

"If you're Irish, it doesn't matter where you go - you'll find family."
-Victoria Smurfit

As much as Mom my protest my claim that we are an Irish family (Flinn is a Northern Irish name after all), she still dressed up the kids in St. Patrick’s Day green and took some pictures.  It’s hard to say, but I think they enjoyed it.

James has learned the physics involved in catapulting dining utensils across the room by using his plate for leverage.  This is great for James but makes dinner a rather harrowing affair.  At least it’s boring.

And this is Isla just being awesomely happy.  Like many babies, you can give them every baby toy in the house to lukewarm reception only to get an excited giggle when you had them bottle parts.

One benefit to Ashlyn getting older is that she’s getting more useful which will be a big help until James and Isla are older.  She has a knack for turning ordinary dishes, such as a fruit salad, into art.

And once dinner is served, she’ll even pitch in and help feed Isla.  She’s so hopeful we’re considering letting her do our taxes this year.

Bikes, bites, and games…

“First we eat, then we do everything else.”
-M.F.K. Fisher

We weren’t sure if James would ever figure out how to keep the pedals on his trike moving forward.  However, out of the blue this week he started pedaling properly and was trucking it around our street.  He still has a little trouble with the big bike but we’re optimistic that he’ll figure that one out quickly now that he has the trike figured out.

Each of our older kids took pretty well to solid food, but neither holds a candle to the newest addition to the family.  Isla has been chomping down on anything we put in front of her and daycare has reported she likes solid food over bottles.  We even tried pancakes this weekend.  The pictures speak for themselves.

Isla also learned to clap this week.  She was doing a one handed clap already but she figured out how to move both hands at once and is quite proud of the achievement.

We try not to waste in our house, but when some slightly spoiled milk needed to be dumped down the sink we figured out a way to turn it into an art/science experiment.  I’m glad we did, the kids had a good time with it and helped us keep them entertained for approximately 2.3 minutes.

We took the portable camera with us this week to swim class and took the best pictures we could.  It’s hard to get good pictures because of the distance and/or glass windows.  Ashlyn was swimming in the water like a champ and James is progressing well.

Nina and Papa came over on Sunday to spend some time with the kids and enjoy some cobbler.  Ashlyn and James immediately dragged Nina into the living room to play Hungry Hungry Hippos™ and Candy Land™.  Isla mostly watched and decided not to smile at anyone.